Just to share my own story...I started having horrendous attacks in September of 2013. I went over two years of seeing many GI doctors and no one had an answer (was even told it could be nerves or stress!). Fast forward to November 2015 and I ended up in the hospital because the attack was so severe. They finally caught me "in" an active attack and did a CT scan. The good news was they finally knew it was "small bowel obstruction". The bad news was they told me there wasn't much to be done about it. I had 30+ abdominal radiations back in 2003. After two more years of attacks, hospital stays, NG tubes I was desperate. I was told that if I had a very severe attack that couldn't be fixed with an NG tube I would have to have emergency surgery. The problem was supposedly this could cause more adhesions and hence make me worse. The attacks were coming once a month. I finally decided to see a laparoscopic GI surgeon in NYC. He was affiliated with Mount Sinai. He was amazing**. He asked me "Why hasn't anyone tried to help you?" I broke down. He spent a lot of time talking to me. He felt there was less than 5% chance of developing new adhesions if he could succeed with laparoscopic surgery. He would know more when he actually went in. I agreed to have regular surgery IF when he looked he thought it was the only choice. Bottom line was I really couldn't do worse than I was doing. He successfully did the laparoscopic surgery and removed 4 feet of small intestine and a small amount of large intestine. I had radiation enteritis. This was 7/31/17. I cannot say that recovery was simple, but I have my life back. The trade-off is that have diarrhea most of the time, but that was happening anyway. I now am working with a GI doctor to help me with this. I avoid certain foods and he is trying some different meds to regulate me. I think I just have "short bowel' syndrome. I eat lower fat, higher carb diet. I know alcohol can be a trigger. Each person is different. I'm also a vegetarian /vegan. My diet is probably 60/40. Anyway, I hope this helps anyone who is suffering. **I have to say this particular doctor didn't take insurance. We paid up front and I ended up getting about 60% back from my insurance company as I had a PPO. Worth every cent.

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